


Love and War and Honor

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by AurigaePrime</p><p>Laurie needs comfort. John does his best to give it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and War and Honor

**Author's Note:**

> Beaucoup thanks to Jess, Liz, Cristin, Lee, and Kara, for shaking me until a plot fell out, holding my hand while I wrote it, letting me clutch their ankles and whine as the deadline approached, and providing me with last-second beta awesomeness. Y'all rock!
> 
> Written for EntreNous

 

 

John was scowling into his ledger when a tap on the windowsill interrupted his thoughts. Hastily he finished adding the long column of numbers, then turned to find Laurie peering in at him. The look on the young man's face was so worrisome, distraught and furious both at once, that John nodded to him, and then stepped into the main office to explain that something urgent had come up at home, and could he be excused for the afternoon?

Receiving permission, he caught up his hat and came hurrying through the door, where Laurie met him, black eyes blazing in a face unusually pale. John put a hand on his shoulder, steering him toward the road, but Laurie twisted away from him and stormed off toward the river, leaving John no choice but to follow.

"Here, now," he said, panting along behind the younger man's energetic figure, "Suppose you tell me what's so important that I had to leave work."

Laurie whirled around, eyes flashing with anger, but he wore the slumped shoulders and drooping mouth of a man who had been beaten, and for all his age and height, he had never before seemed to John as vulnerable as he was now.

Gradually the story came spilling out-- the proposal, the rejection, Jo's complete refusal to offer any hope-- and although John was relieved that the girl had had the good sense to turn down Laurie's proposal, his first concern now was for the well-being of the boy he had mentored and watched over.

It was to this end that he proposed a walk, and Laurie set such a pace that John would not have had the breath to speak even if he had wanted to. But John had been the first person to make any headway at taming this headstrong boy, and he knew that the first rule of managing Laurie was simply to tire him out before attempting to negotiate with him.

Finally, sheltered in a convenient stand of pine trees, Laurie's energy deserted him, and he flung himself to the ground in the boneless manner peculiar to dejected young lovers. John lowered himself to the ground rather more decorously, settling himself beside the boy to wait out this fit of temper, or temperament: whichever it should prove to be.

Apparently the latter, for the face Laurie turned up to him presently was suggestively damp around the eyes, and his mouth still quivered despite an obvious attempt to control it. John sighed and reached out to smooth Laurie's tangled curls, and felt the boy-- a young man now, he reminded himself-- lean into his touch greedily. Presently Laurie shifted, turning onto his side with his head pillowed on John's thigh and his face pressed into John's waistcoat.

"Keep rubbing, please," he commanded, voice muffled, and John obliged, letting his fingers move steadily through the silky hair and down to the tense muscles of Laurie's neck.

They sat in silence for some time, and John thought Laurie had gone to sleep, but by and by Laurie murmured, "I led you a hard time of it, Brooke, didn't I?"

"You did, for quite some while," John said, trying and failing to guess where Laurie was leading him, "But no more so than any other young man in your circumstances would do."

"That's what I like about you, Brooke," said Laurie. "You always know when a fellow needs petting and when he needs blows. But honestly now, don't you think that's why she wouldn't hear of it-- how dreadful I was as a boy? Surely I must be much better now than I used to be--"

"Oh, much improved," John said, affecting a lighter tone to sweeten the bitter pill he offered, "I don't believe for a minute, however, that Jo March has any objections to you, on the whole. Her objections stem entirely from the thought of combining herself with you."

Here Laurie would have jerked himself roughly from John's caresses, but John gripped him firmly by the collar, and Laurie subsided sulkily. John continued: "It's not your own bad behavior to which she objects, but rather the fact that you approve of her own. She has taken such pains to school herself into acceptable behavior, and she likes that she can be herself around you. But if she were to marry you, she would lose that luxury-- she would have to be Mrs. Laurence in public, and I suspect, as she seems to, that it would ruin her for being Jo in private."

"It wouldn't," said Laurie decidedly, "for I wouldn't let it. It's Jo March who I'm in love with, and anyone who thinks she should be someone else can go hang!"

Seeing that Laurie was not prepared to think rationally on that point, John wisely fell silent. Presently, however, he offered the remark, "You're awfully young for marriage still."

"More's the pity," returned Laurie, flushing a little.

John suspected the reason for the blush, and he could not resist teasing a little: "It's not all fun and games, you know; the inevitable results of marital bliss tend to remove the aforementioned bliss altogether."

Perhaps John's voice held more of an edge than he knew, for Laurie twisted to look up at him, current hurt temporarily forgotten in the opportunity for new mischief. "Poor Brooke. Are you being neglected? I can't imagine how it would feel to be neglected for a diaper-pail."

John, much relieved to see this mercurial shift, cuffed Laurie gently. "Just wait, impudent boy-- someday you too shall be pushed rudely aside and told "not tonight, dear; I am _so_ tired" just when you would most appreciate some exercise of your marital prerogatives."

Laurie blushed redder than ever, and inquired delicately, "I suppose you don't take yourself to a, hum, professional for the same reason I don't?"

John sobered in a instant, answering, "If the reason you mean is that I respect my wife and myself too much to do so, then you suppose correctly. It is not, however, the only reason."

Now Laurie's face was wide awake, ready for a lecture-- that was one thing Jo March had done for him, at least; the Laurie of old would have laughed at John's little cautionary tales.

"It is not a safe thing to do," he began, watching Laurie's face as he spoke. "Those women are visited by countless men, more than one a night, and often no one involved is terribly clean. It's an easy way to spread sickness, and often the men in the army who visited such women would find themselves ill. Sometimes the cures were merely embarassing; sometimes they were as painful as the illness."

"Then what did they do instead?" Laurie asked, with a boy's eagerness to hear about anything ugly or distasteful. "Surely they did _something_?"

"Not all of them," said John, in the simple manner that had always earned him Laurie's attention and respect. "Some of them dealt with such urges alone, in private moments of self-abuse. Others, the ones who craved companionship as well as physical gratification, paired off as the Greeks did."

"I see," said Laurie, reflectively. "Well, I'm glad I haven't been missing anything, not frequenting brothels as some of the other boys do, but you'll forgive me if I confess that there are times I feel the Greeks had the right idea from the beginning."

"There are times," John said, "when everyone feels that way, I believe. Certainly it would be far better to relieve one's urges with a close companion than with a stranger. Still..."

"I'm already impertinent," Laurie said after a moment, "so I know you won't be surprised when I ask you, man to man, what _you_ did."

John offered him a rueful smile. "I wrote letters."

"To Meg, you mean?"

"Don't be an ass; writing to Meg was generally the cause of my affliction. Writing to you was the antidote."

Laurie launched himself at John, and they scuffled in the grass in a way they had seldom had cause to do. Perhaps it was the wrestling, or perhaps the nature of their conversation, or perhaps simply the unusual emotional components of their interaction, but they shortly found themselves pressed together, their breath coming quick and shallow.

It would have taken a stronger man than John Brooke to resist the desperation of Laurie's hips and mouth against his own. He surrendered to the push of the young man's body, drawing him closer: but he regained himself far more quickly than most men would have done in his place, and pushed Laurie away from him.

The earlier hurt had returned to Laurie's face, stronger than before, and John knew that he would have to step carefully to remove his share of that pain. "I can't," he said to the black eyes watching him. "God help me, Laurie, I cannot add to your hurt like this."

"But--" Laurie began (his voice high as a child's). John watched him swallow and begin again: "But you are _helping_ me."

"No, dear." John cupped the young man's chin in his hand. "This is not help. This is only a bandage, and it will only be temporary. I truly think you will feel the worse for this encounter by and by, and I beg your pardon for that." He ignored the tremulous shake of Laurie's head and continued. "When I said you were my antidote, I meant that in more ways than one. In so many ways, you were the person I fought for, as much as-- maybe more than-- Meg or my children. I wanted to set an example of patriotism for you, and it helped that you thought me brave for going. And then I wanted at the same time to protect you, that you would never need to see the atrocity of war.

"It was all that I needed, to see you kept safe, and all that I wanted, to set you a good example. And what example would I set now, if I taught you to hide from your grief? Not to mention the example I would set by betraying my wife."

Now Laurie jerked away, lurching to his feet. "Then I hope you will forgive me this indulgence," he said sharply, and John heard the rustle of fabric. He turned his head away as Laurie stroked himself, but forced himself to listen, flinching when Laurie gasped in completion. He did not turn around until he heard Laurie re-fasten his pants and wipe his hand on the grass.

John stood up, meeting Laurie's eyes until the young man looked away and muttered, with ill grace, "I know you only wish the best for me, and I respect that, and you for it. But just at the moment, I only wish you could have offered me comfort _now_." He turned to leave, adding over his shoulder, "Grandfather will be expecting me. I should go."

John stood looking after the retreating form. He was somewhat reassured, but not entirely, when Laurie turned back and embraced him, saying warmly "I know you are right, and I do forgive you. But-- I really do want to be away from you for the moment."

The kiss he offered John in parting was as chaste as any offered between brothers. It seemed, John decided, like a good omen, and he too left the little clearing to take himself home.

 


End file.
